The Singer - Hunter Elizabeth. Страница 18

“I’m sorry, Ava.” He held her close. “I miss him too.”

“Everything is wrong. Everything hurts more.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I thought it would be better if I left. If I left Turkey, I thought he’d stay there. But he didn’t.”

“Of course he didn’t.”

“I see him everywhere. He’s everywhere. And he always will be.”

“Ava—”

“And I hate him for that. For leaving me,” she choked out. “And for not leaving me.”

Damien didn’t say anything for a while; he just let her cry. And when the worst of it had passed, Ava whispered, “I know that doesn’t make sense.”

“Yes, it does.” He held her close, pressing her cheek against his shoulder. “He would have moved heaven and earth to stay with you, Ava. You know that.”

“But he didn’t, Damien. Of all the things he could do, he couldn’t do that.”

Damien ignored his lunch that was growing cold on the counter. Ava ignored her growling stomach. She sat on the floor of the maple-paneled bathroom with Malachi’s brother and allowed herself to feel more than she had in months. Until finally grief slipped away to hide its face until the next time.

Hours later, Ava finally heeded the call of her rumbling stomach and went to look for Astrid. There was a road leading into the isolated valley, but a visitor clearly needed to know where they were going to find it. Ava had seen a few cars come and go, along with a truck that delivered boxes of supplies on Wednesday morning and took some of the milk and vegetables the haven produced.

In addition to the Irina, there were also a few Irin families. They seemed to keep to themselves, but Ava had seen a few men hanging at the edge of the compound and even a small child. The families lived in a group of cottages half a kilometer or so deeper into the valley and away from the main house and the road. Clearly, protecting them was a priority since Ava had only caught glimpses.

To any visitor driving in, the compound would seem like a commune of sorts, with animals and greenhouses to grow food. Low buildings housed workshops and storage units and a small clinic that Damien said was open to any emergency since Astrid was the only trained doctor for miles around. What the average visitor wouldn’t see was the interior of the brightly painted barn where women fought and parried with sticks, staffs, and knives. The archery range was hidden behind innocuous greenhouse fronts. Ava doubted many would see the cameras so expertly hidden among the buildings or understand them if they did.

Ava saw everything. And far from just being a haven for wounded Irina, she could also see what the Irin scribes hadn’t known.

This was a training center, and it might have been isolated, but it was far from idle.

She knocked on the door marked with a bright red cross. She heard shuffling, then the door opened.

“Welcome,” Astrid said with a smile. “Come in, come in.”

“Thanks.”

If Astrid caught Ava’s swollen eyes, she said nothing.

Astrid’s clinic looked just like a small cottage with a sitting area and kitchen in the main room, then three doors leading off a small hall in the back. Her desk was in a corner of the living area, and a kettle was on the stove. Ava wandered around the room, which was decorated with pictures of women, children, and families.

“I didn’t know there were so many families left,” she said as Astrid went to the kitchen. “How many are there?”

“More in the last few years.”

“I thought most of the Irin and Irina lived apart.”

“Most, but not all. The girls who weren’t mated after the Rending mated quickly, if they were still interested. Many weren’t. But some. So there are still a few families.” The smell of pepper and red meat filled the air. It smelled like Astrid had made chili. “There are more in Vienna since it is the safest Irin city. But even there, Irina live very quietly. A very few live in scribe houses with their mates. Some live in places like this. But most Irina have hidden in the human world.”

“Does the council know about them?”

“They do and they don’t. They know we exist. From the news that leaks out of Vienna, there are as many solutions to the ‘Irina problem’ as there are elders.”

“I can imagine.”

 “I doubt that,” Astrid said, but she didn’t seem condescending. Just tired. Her movements were deliberate as she set out the cups for tea. “So, only a few families. And of course, there were some children left.”

“How many—”

“Fifteen… maybe twenty percent of the children survived.”

It seemed impossible that any people could endure so much tragedy.

“Can the Irin survive, Astrid? Really?”

Astrid cocked her head. “Biologically? Yes. There are enough of us to survive. But will we? Who knows? Things are still very fresh for us.”

“But the Rending was two hundred years ago.”

She smiled. “It seems strange to you, I know.”

“More than a little.”

“Life didn’t stop for us, Ava.” Astrid waved her toward the table and Ava sat. “But it did slow down. For many years we all just… waited.”

Astrid’s eyes had drifted off; she stood at the stove, but was looking out the window over the sink.

“For what?” Ava asked.

“I think I spent ten years after Marten died, waiting to wake up and realize it was all a horrible dream. Life seemed to stand still. It was easier for those with children to move on, because children don’t stop growing. But there were so few children left. The villages were destroyed. No one even wanted to try to rebuild. The council was… unbelievable.”

“How?”

“Immediately after the attack, there were some who blamed the Irina for letting their guard down. ‘They should have been more prepared,’ they said.”

Ava gasped. “But—”

“Most who took that view were condemned, of course.” Astrid shook her head. “What a horrendous thing to say! One elder was attacked and killed by scribes from a house near Leon. They’d lost everything. Not a single survivor from their village. It had been burned while the scribes were fighting the Grigori attack in Paris. They blamed the council for ordering them away.”

“What happened?”

Astrid shrugged as she ladled stew into deep bowls and set one in front of Ava. “I don’t know. It wasn’t like now with instant communication. Letters would take weeks or months to arrive. There was so much confusion. Those of us who remained went into hiding. We didn’t know if more attacks were coming. None of us felt safe anymore. Many of the scribes whose mates had survived left with them and hid, even though they abandoned their posts at scribe houses and libraries.”

“They could do that?”

“No. Even now, if they came out of hiding, they would be punished by the council, so it’s not worth it to them to try to reenter Irin society. They’d rather remain with their mates.” Astrid’s eyes glanced toward the window again, and Ava got the distinct impression that more than one of the males she’d seen was a fugitive.

“But not everyone joined their mate,” she said, thinking of Damien and Sari. “Some of the Irina here, they have mates in the outside world, don’t they?”

Astrid nodded as she sat. “Yes. Some do. There are three Irina here who have mates who fight in houses away from here.”

Ava couldn’t imagine Malachi being in the world and not being with her. “How do they… I mean, don’t they need—”

“Contact?” Astrid smiled a little. “Of course they do. Emotionally. Even biologically, Irin and Irina need physical contact. Mates dream walk, of course, but the mated Irina here often leave.”

“And Sari lets them?”

Astrid smiled. “We’re not stuck here. We can go anytime we want. Most of the women with mates meet them when they can get away. They go to the city for a while, or places in the country where they can be alone.”

“And children?”

Astrid shrugged. “I’m sure a scribe would be given leave if his mate was pregnant. Children are rare for us, and Irin men seldom leave their women alone when they are pregnant.”